You can’t learn math without making mistakes | Stenhouse Publishers

Education Week notes, "You can't learn math without making mistakes." What's Right About Wrong Answers gives you 22 activities that focus on important ideas in grades 4-5 math. Each includes a summary of the content and highlighted error, Common Core connections, redproducibles, required manipulatives, and other tools. 

Nancy Anderson turns mistakes on their head and helps you cleverly use them to students’ advantage. Each of the twenty-two activities in this book focuses on important ideas in grades 4–5 mathematics. By examining comic strips, letters to a fictitious math expert from confused students, and sample student work containing mistakes, your learners explore typical math mistakes, reflect on why they’re wrong, and move toward deeper understanding.

Each activity includes:

• a summary of the mathematical content and highlighted error;
• Common Core connections;
• prerequisite knowledge that students need;
• required reproducibles, manipulatives, and other tools;
• the big underlying math ideas; and
• suggestions for implementing the activity.

Each activity can be used to enhance units of instruction and help students prepare for assessments that are aligned with the Common Core and similar state standards.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Whole-Number Multiplication and Division
• Chapter 2: Fractions
• Chapter 3: Decimals
• Chapter 4: Measurement and Geometry
• Appendix
• References and Further Reading
• Index

Preview the entire book online!

About Nancy C. Anderson
Nancy Anderson is K-8 Mathematics Coordinator and Grade 8 Mathematics Teacher at Milton Academy. Nancy is an experienced classroom teacher, curriculum specialist, and professional developer. She is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences and a published author in the field of mathematics education.  
Read more...

Source: Stenhouse Publishers and Education Week

Two U-M faculty awarded Guggenheim Fellowships | U of M News Service

Photo: Jared Wadley

"Two University of Michigan humanities faculty are among a distinguished group of 173 scholars, artists and scientists from the U.S. and Canada to receive 2017 Guggenheim Fellowships." inform Jared Wadley, writes about faculty research and student learning in departments mainly affiliated with the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, such as political science, psychology, communication studies, sociology and women's studies. He also updates the Michigan News featured experts.

Photo: Adela Pinch

Photo: Paolo Squatriti

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced today that Adela Pinch, English professor, and Paolo Squatriti, professor of history and romance languages and literatures, both in the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, received the prestigious honor. Foundation president Edward Hirsch described the fellows as "the best of the best." 

Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of nearly 3,000 applicants in the foundation's 93rd competition. The funding amounts of the awards vary.

"We are proud to have two faculty members named as Guggenheim Fellows," said Interim Provost Paul N. Courant. "This award honors their outstanding and innovative work. It is also a testament to the breadth and depth of scholarship at the University of Michigan."
Read more...

Source: U of M News Service

Philosopher of the month: John Stuart Mill [timeline] | OUPblog

"This April, the OUP Philosophy team honors John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) as their Philosopher of the Month." summarizes John Priest, Marketing Assistant at Oxford University Press. 

Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Among the most important philosophers, economists, and intellectual figures of the nineteenth century, today Mill is considered a founding father of liberal thought. A prolific author, Mill’s collected works encompass thirty-three volumes ranging in subject from philosophy to social issues and beyond.
Read more... 

Source: OUPblog (blog)

Shuford Elementary students explore blended learning | Hickory Daily Record

"Drew Fisher has attended Shuford Elementary since kindergarten, and now as a fifth-grader, he admits there have been a lot of changes – mostly because of blended learning." continues Hickory Daily Record.
 

The first example he likes to highlight is the amount of technology used by students.

“You used to do everything on pencil and paper, and now we’re finding ways to do it on the computer, and I like it that way,” Fisher said. “Now, the teachers can’t get on to you for turning in something on crunched up paper.”

It was this type of bold, confidence visitors saw in every class they visited from kindergarten to fifth grade during Wednesday’s Blended Learning Showcase at the school.

This method of teaching has students working in small groups of equal learning levels and then rotating from face-to-face time with their teacher to using online tools to working at hands-on stations. The system allows teachers to personalize instruction while not slowing down an entire class, making the most of digital content online.

Working in a group is a big part of the blended learning method as well, and some of the student guides during the showcase admitted it can be hard working with others at times.

“It depends on the assignment we’re given,” Reid Griffin said. “Patience is important. It’s the same thing like sports. If you keep working with what you’re doing, you’ll get better at it.”

Aspen Hartsoe, a fourth-grader, said it came down to learning how to get along.

“The people in your group have to cooperate with you or it doesn’t work,” Hartsoe said. “You just figure each other out, and it gets easier the longer you do it.”

Newton-Conover City Schools board chair Jeanne Jarrett was one of the school’s guests, and she enjoyed seeing the different teaching options available to Shuford teachers.

“Showcasing it like this really showed us a little bit more hands-on as to what they’re doing,” Jarrett said. “It’s really amazing how you can walk into a classroom and they’re all working on the same topic but they’re doing it in different ways. Some are on iPads. Some are using pencil and paper. Some are using books.”

Jarrett also was impressed with how focused the students were despite having guests coming in and out of their classrooms.
Read more...

Source: Hickory Daily Record

Could Artificial Intelligence Achieve Singularity in 20 Years? | TechDigg

Photo: Vamien McKalin

"Artificial intelligence is on the rise and getting smarter with every passing year. It’s almost safe to say human level artificial intelligence will happen in the years to come, but the question is, how long do we have to wait?" notes Vamien McKalin, has writing in the tech field for over five years.
 

Photo: TechDigg

Whenever it happens, we should expect AI to surpass our own intelligence in many ways. As for now, we have no idea what it would look like, or even when it will happen. However, we do know the day will eventually happen.

The age of singularity 
What is a singularity you ask? Well, it’s when humans can no longer predict what an AI will do. As expected, many folks view a future of singularity AI to be a huge problem humans must refrain from bringing into existence, but Damien Scott, a Stanford University business and energy and earth sciences graduate, doesn’t quite agree.

“We’ll start to see narrow artificial intelligence domains that keep getting better than the best human,” Scott told Inverse in an interview. “Calculators already outperform us, and there’s evidence that within two to three years, AI will outperform the best radiologists in the world.”

From what Scott is saying, the singularity is already here, but broken up across several different industries where AI exists. Soon enough, every industry will have an AI calling the shots, but to us, the real problem would come into play if humans create an artificial intelligence with every imaginable information baked into its brain.
Read more... 

Source: TechDigg

Suggested Book of the Week - The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life

Photo:Luc Ferry

Check this book out below by Luc Ferry, French philosopher.

Photo: GraphicStock.com

The Wisdom of the Myths:
How Greek Mythology Can
Change Your Life

A fascinating new journey through Greek mythology that explains the myths' timeless lessons and meaning. Heroes, gods, and mortals. The Greek myths are the founding narratives of Western civilization: to understand them is to know the origins of philosophy, literature, art, science, law, and more. Indeed, as Luc Ferry shows in this masterful book, they remain a great store of wisdom, as relevant to our lives today as ever before. No mere legends or clichés ("Herculean task," "Pandora's box," "Achilles heel," etc.), these classic stories offer profound and manifold lessons, providing the first sustained attempt to answer fundamental human questions concerning "the good life," the burden of mortality, and how to find one's place in the world. Vividly retelling the great tales of mythology and illuminating fresh new ways of understanding them, The Wisdom of the Myths will enlighten readers of all ages. 
Read more...  

Recommended Reading

Parallel Myths

An entertaining and thought-provoking look at the common threads woven through the world's greatest myths -- and the central role they have played through time.

Enjoy your reading!

Source: Ancient Origins

Taking Your Leads From Artificial Intelligence | Social Media Insider

Photo: Thom Forbes

Thom Forbes, Featured Columnist says, "Sysomos rolled out a unified social media marketing and analytics platform yesterday that it says enables marketers to access all the paid, owned and earned data they need to create strategic campaigns, take action in real time and measure the actions through one interface." 

In effect, it unifies the range of tools Sysomos has developed or acquired over the years into one platform. Individual users, however, can focus on the aspects that matter most to them, whether it’s identifying trending topics, measuring impact or using the refined data to tell relevant stories.

Photo: Sysomos blog

The platform also incorporates artificial intelligence to “uncover correlations, anomalies and associations by using machine learning to process trillions of data points every second,” as a release puts it, and that’s the aspect I’m going to focus on.

While viewing a couple of short previews of the new platform that Sysomos CEO Peter Heffring sent over last week, I was struck in particular by its ability to detect patterns not only in the words of a social campaign but also in posted images. It then delivers what Sysomos calls “automated unguided insights” that you can take a variety of actions on, from responding to a comment to sharing it, to referring an idea to your agency to generate a new campaign. And AI notices things that the human eye doesn’t --  for instance, the way a bicycle in an influencer’s post about your automobile brand is catching a number of people’s attention.

There's recently been a lot of thought-provoking  information -- to take the spin off what some might call disturbing info -- about where AI might lead us. Elon Musk is one of those most concerned, even as he develops his own company to implant electrodes that someday will upload and download thoughts in the human brain. Granted, much of the apprehension is on a far more advanced,  or totally hypothetical, level than the relatively benign desire of marketers to harness every purchasing proclivity of every consumer.

Then there’s the matter of bots gunning for your job. Rest assured that the AI in Sysomos’ new platform isn’t.

“The human element, I think, is absolutely still critical,” says Erica Jenkins, Sysomos’ chief product officer. Based on all the “permutations and different measurement points” the platform mines, “we can tell the human, ‘Hey, if you are going to go and create new content, the best theme should be …; , these type of key words should be included; here's maybe a hashtag or some type of a trend that might -- right now, real time -- be something that you could harness.”

Leave the collecting and sifting of all that data to the machines, in other words, and spend your time crafting stories that will resonate with your target. Indeed, during a presentation CEO Heffring made last month, he was careful to put AI in its place.
Read more... 

Related link

Sysomos Launches Smart Social Marketing Platform Uniting All Social Management Functions - (press release).   

Source: MediaPost Communications

Cybersecurity audit finds students can access obscene material on school computers | Watchdog.org

Photo: Steve Wilson

"There could be more than just homework on your child’s school-issued laptop or tablet, according to a recent cybersecurity audit report released by the Mississippi State Auditor’s office." inform Steve Wilson, Mississippi reporter for Watchdog.org.

BUSTED: A cybersecurity audit by the Mississippi State Auditor’s office found objectionable material or possible access to objectionable material on a survey of 150 computers from nine school districts.
Photo: Watchdog.org

State Auditor Stacey Pickering’s office found 20 percent of the 150 laptop and desktop computers from nine school districts “showed evidence that that students were able to access explicit material on school-issued devices.” Worse yet, 86 percent of the computers surveyed from seven middle schools, and 82 percent of devices analyzed from 11 high schools, found objectionable material such as pornography.

The report said the districts’ filtering systems were ineffective at filtering inappropriate material, which is a violation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act. That federal law mandates that schools and libraries participating in the federally-supported E-rate program block and filter internet access that is obscene or harmful to minors.

Several school districts in the state — such as the Tupelo and Clinton school districts — issue laptops and tablets to students under the One to One Digital Learning Initiative for use on their studies, and allow students to access the internet, digital course materials and books. Some of these districts, including the Clarksdale Municipal School District, received federal grants to provide each student with a computer or tablet.

According to the report, the nine districts didn’t enforce internet safety and acceptable use policies. In particular, they didn’t ensure that technology protection measures — such as web filters — were operational and effective. Also, one of the districts didn’t maintain filtering for when students take their computers home.
Read more...

Source: Watchdog.org

The 7 Deadly Sins of Online Learning (And 7 Ways to Repent) | EdSurge

Photo: Sydney Johnson

"Education technology is riddled with temptations and false promises. But if you ask Mark Brown, a professor and director of the National Institute for Digital Learning at Dublin City University in Ireland, problems such as falling for hype around new technology is an absolute moral dilemma." says Sydney Johnson, editorial assistant at EdSurge.

Photo: OLC/ neftali (Shutterstock)

He’s caved in before. “I have a personal confession,” Brown admitted in his keynote address at OLC Innovate happening this week in New Orleans. “I am a very big sinner.”

Yet like any confessional, Brown also offered ways to repent from what he called “the seven deadly sins of online learning.” Feeling a bit guilty ourselves (and perhaps inspired by the home of the Saints), we caught up with Brown afterwards for some advice on ways to return to the righteous path.

Hype
Sin: The glitzy gadgets, bandwagons and buzzwords are easy to latch on to. But they aren’t always meaningful, and can limit innovation by pigeonholing people to old ideas and ways of thinking about online learning. “In the past, I have been guilty of being seduced, perhaps mesmerized by the hype of new technology,” Brown said. “I have to remind myself that real sustainable innovation isn’t about the magic of marvel; it goes deeper than that.”

Repent: Take a close look at the research before giving in to flashy brands and the latest-and-greatest, Brown warned. “There are too many generalizations—online and blended learning isn't a single entity. We have wonderful case studies of innovation, but when you remove the novelty after time the impact isn’t the same. We must be able to skillfully read the research.”

Vision  
Sin: Brown is weary of the so-called thought leaders and loud talking heads in the community. These people can be easy to latch onto, he said, and limit the level of input others can contribute when crafting goals and plans. “We are told vision is crucial to planning sustainable change, to structural innovation. But the problem is not a lack of vision, but rather whose vision, and where is the vision coming from?”

Repent: Instead of focusing on a single vision, Brown thinks real innovation lies in the ability to create more leaders and with that, add diverse perspectives. “The world we are living in is so fluid and dynamic, you have to build an environment where everyone is able to contribute to the vision.” As an example, Brown pointed to his own university, which last week ran a 24-hour live brainstorming exercise that invited anyone to share their ideas about what the college should be working on. “We had thousands of people contribute and everyone had the chance to see themselves in the vision.”
Read more...

Source: EdSurge   

5 technologies to avoid in the classroom-and what to use instead | eSchool News

Photo: Meris Stansbury

"In a technology-dependent education culture, are there some technologies to avoid? And if so, why, and what are better alternatives?" according to Meris Stansbury, Editorial Director for both eSchool News and eCampus News.

Photo: eSchool News

One of the most popular articles on eSchool Media is a surprising one to the editors: “6 apps that block social media distractions.” This story, which seemed  a bit counter-intuitive for us to write (being a tech-cheerleading publication in nature), has held the top spot by a massive margin for almost three years now; which had the editors considering the question, “Are there technologies that should simply be avoided in the classroom?”

Of course, the editors then had to ponder what would make a technology easier to avoid than try to implement, and came up with a list of broad technologies and technology trends that either A) caused, rather than eased, more problems and concerns in the classroom, and/or B) were not evolved enough to make an actual difference in teaching or learning.

And, not wanting to simply talk technology trash without offering some useful information, the editors then came up with the technology options that may be better suited for the intended classroom task.

See any technologies you believe should be avoided that didn’t make the list? Be sure to leave your comments in the section below.
Read more...

Source: eSchool News